


Put Out the Light

by TheUnkindledQueen



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 21:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20264479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUnkindledQueen/pseuds/TheUnkindledQueen
Summary: The King believed. The thoughts the Vessel felt was another matter entirely.





	Put Out the Light

**Author's Note:**

> So I made a fanfic of The Hollow Knight during their time sealed away. There is self-harm and some sad things within it. It was inspired while I was fighting the knight.

~O~

[What is it?]

[It’s too bright…]

There was a choking sound that came from within the darkness of the temple. Though there was no name for what it was. It sounded animal, sick and dying. What made such a noise?

[…I do not think of these things…]

**[AND YET YOU THINK OF THEM.]**

The Knight held up their hand, trembling weakly. Every move shot bolts of fiery light through their eyes. The things they saw when they took in that thing. That…pain. 

They were Void. And yet, light scorched behind their sockets in a brilliant blaze that shouldn’t have been.

[Father spoke of virtue in our act. Our kin endured and disappeared for our act. He sacrificed them so that we could be.]

**[LIES.]**

They did not understand the whispered influence of the Forgotten Light. Were they infected? They were brought into the arms of the King and the Lady. 

_Mother._

_Father._

**[IT’S WILL IS TAINTED. IT’S PURPOSE CORRUPTED.]**

**[IT BONDED.]**

The whispers continued from the blackness. Or had it come from within? The Knight was perfect. The Knight wasn’t corrupted. Nor infected. 

No. 

The voice lied.

It was carried through ribbons of light and fire. 

**[…Kill…]**

O

The Knight could hear the laughter. 

Where had it come from?

**[…Shall blaze free…]**

The Knight felt wetness against the bone-white face hiding their true visage. Reaching up, they touched it and realized that it burned. 

**[Burn.]**

**[Pain.]**

Emotions were flickering across their mind and memory in ways it should not have. They should not have felt it; should not have comprehended the sensation for what it was the way other bugs did. 

A hand clawed at the socket, coming up with more glowing slime. 

No. Infected.

**[NO.]**

**[…DAWN…SHALL BREAK…]**

The Knight collapsed to their knees, body writhing like a decapitated worm. Why did they move like this? Why couldn’t they stop?

Why did it hurt? It wasn’t meant to hurt.

Through the haze of pain and infection, the Knight saw the King watching them. Between flickers of fire and light dancing across their vision like sprites, the King disappeared.

[…Father?…]

But when the Knight opened their eyes again, they began to understand that they no longer laid on the floor of the temple. No. They had been levitated above with chains that bound them tight.

They were alone.

With the Light. 

[Please. Do not abandon me…I promise to do good.]

O

They could still feel their fingers.

The swells of infection had burst from the place they once had an arm, but somehow, the Knight could still feel the fingers, as if they were there. 

No, the arm had rotted away once the glowing ooze had burst free. 

They felt stretched taut, their mind swelling with whispers from the Light. That being whose eyes were bright as the sun. Those whispers uttered from a place forgotten.

And yet, they hung there. The only sounds were the drips from the arm they had lost, the whispers in the shadows of the temple. 

Slime dripped down from the Knight’s cheeks in rivers. Their body was breaking down. 

[Everything was weak.]

_Oh…Are you weeping, little one?_

The Knight lifted their head slightly, feeling an embrace from somewhere in the far reaches of their mind. It came from a warm place. It was not the Light, but something else familiar.

A comforting embrace from a root of a Mother.

The Knight lifted their head as much as they could, seeing the glowing warmth of the White Lady’s ocean blue eyes. 

_Your mind is failing. Little one. I sense it…_

[I…I mustn’t fail…]

_Oh. Don’t cry, little one. Mother loves you…_

Cry? They did not cry. 

O

Their kin.

_Why?_

The Knight watched as the little form of their small kin wandered into the temple. Was it a lie? Was it a false image made from the Light? 

A chain snapped.

The Knight saw it as it crumbled to the floor in a pile of glittering white magic and fading glow. 

Another snapped as its kin broke that one.

**[LET ME OUT.]**

**[KILL THE USURPER.]**

The final chain was broken and the Knight collapsed to the floor in a heap. It saw through slime and infection the shape of the little vessel. 

It was more than a simple vessel. 

The Light twisted inside of them like an angry serpent. But it hissed with fear. Uncertainty and doubt. 

Something had changed.

**[LET ME OUT!!]**

The Knight rose, clutching their Nail in their hand. Pools of infection spilled out onto the floor from their body.

It had been long since they’d taken their first step inside that tomb. Their kin had been the first in so long.

**[KILL!!]**

The Knight took a step forward and screamed. 

The sound did not belong to them.

The call they had uttered long ago was silent. It meant nothing. They had been flawless then. They had been perfect. 

_No._

This sound was an unrecognizable noise from deep within; the piercing wail of a thousand knives cutting through the air. It carried the rage, the fear and every sliver of hate waiting to crawl to the surface.

**[SNUFF IT OUT.]**

**[PUT OUT THE LIGHT.]**

**[I MUST.]**

Their kin waited for them with their small Nail drawn. They were ready for this. They had been learning for this. 

Oh, the Knight knew…

But the Knight knew that the Light would destroy their kin. 

[…Save them…]

The Knight looked down at their Nail; a dulled thing lost and forgotten to time. It had once been a symbol of what it meant to preserve Hallownest. It had been a mark upon their world. Their very lives.

**[DON’T.]**

The Knight turned the Nail upon themselves and shoved it through their frail body, tearing the essence and splashing infection from the wound all over the temple floor.

Their kin backed away, unresponsive to the sight.

[Again.]

[And again.]

[I must…]

Over and over their Nail pierced their own form. Over and over infection splashed about, staining the temple floor in its corruption. 

Their kin continued to watch, as if waiting. 

The Knight collapsed to the floor now, utterly spent from exhaustion. The pustules of infection had swelled now from their belly, nearly ripping them apart.

The pain was still there, but they had no longer noticed it.

The pools of infection cast a reflection of what the Knight was. 

Their eyes were glowing orange. 

Their head had split down the middle.

[Do not abandon me…]

Their kin approached them where they were kneeling and the Knight looked down at the familiar sight.

[…I remember you…]

[…Oh, yes, I remember you…]

The Light snarled, hissing angrily in their head. 

**[KILL THE USURPER.]**

Instead, the Knight lowered their head before their kin.

[Put out the light…]

And their kin, with their single small Nail raised it high, acknowledging them with a single incline of their head.

Put their blade through their head.


End file.
